Mind races to exit from 2020
Wide-awake at 2 a.m., with my brain ping-ponging through current events and surprise, I became a terrorist this week because I’m against fascism but should I rat out my uncles who fought against European fascists in 1945 because today American Nazis, white supremacists and over-armed phony “militias” are considered good guys, so thank goodness I don’t have to worry about being on the terrorist no-fly list because COVID is still strangling travel as we calmly respect social distancing and try to slow transmission of the virus, unless for you, rules are just suggestions like at Greenwich Point where it says that if you’re in close proximity to others, remain six feet apart and use a mask ... except of course if you’re walking with friends, riding a bike, clotting in groups or running past people on trails, milling around by the concession stand, or you just don’t want to because, freedom, which is OK since many people have decided they’re just over this whole virus thing because it’s summer which means baseball and baseball means ... oh no, another billionaires vs. millionaires slap-fight, and look, if it’s not safe to play, be honest with us and don’t play until 2021, which we can respect, just don’t expect we’ll shed any tears for either side, because we love the game more than any one piece of it, like Greenwich, where we may not like all the individual pieces, but we love the whole of it, so when education, one of our favorite pieces, comes under attack, battle lines are drawn and vicious letters to the editor start flying and wow, once the Representative Town Meeting starts gathering in person, meetings could look like circa 1859 U.S. House of Representatives caucuses that featured threats, representative on representative beatings and gun-toting zealots arguing how much black lives matter, which by the way, Black Lives Matter as a movement, has never implied that ONLY black lives matter, just that black lives should matter the same as everyone else, even if evidently it doesn’t matter if the oppressed take a knee, speak their minds or gather in the streets, they’ll always somehow be wrong since from Selma to Minneapolis, the easily offended will never support racial or social protest of any kind, unlike the late Paul Robeson who thundered, “My father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you and no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it, is that clear” which damn, that’s real Resistance, not #resistance, which is needed when facing Trump and his minions of the damned with whom there will always be something worse than before, like gassing peaceful protesters for a church photo op, which makes me wonder if Greenwich is proud of favorite daughter Hope “the next Leni Riefenstahl” Hicks who helped concoct that scheme, because I’m damn proud of my son who 3D-prints personal protective gear at home, donating them to hospitals where front line health care workers have to beg for masks, gowns and face shields to keep us safe, while battle armored local police departments look like Avengers movie villains, which keeps us from enjoying the exploits of the heroically named astronauts Bob and Doug being sent into space from the United States on an American rocket for the first time in nine years, taking the first new steps toward exploring the planets and the stars but terrifyingly there’s always something else, like being told that God sent Donald Trump to America and my big question is, why, was He out of locusts, but then my new man-crush, the governor of Kentucky says, “You cannot fan the flames and then condemn the fire,” and I hope our selectmen will be smart and reasonable like him, like when they closed Greenwich Avenue to help restaurants open so now I can call friends in my quarantine bubble, and all go to dinner where we’ll debate whether people without masks are stupid, selfish or neither, why Drew Brees is allowed to be an idiot about race but LeBron James has to shut up and dribble, how Obamagate is actually still not a thing but Murder Hornets, man, I really hate 2020.
Rules are just suggestions like at Greenwich Point where it says that if you’re in close proximity to others, remain six feet apart and use a mask ... except of course if you’re walking with friends, riding a bike, clotting in groups or running past people on trails, milling around by the concession stand, or you just don’t want to because, freedom.